The vote announced by the tellers in the House was 219 aye votes but the written record showed the extra aye.

Among the aye votes were 18 Conservative MPs and seven Liberal Democrats.

The result of the backbench business vote, which is not binding, is a blow for ministers, who have claimed the culls are a vital part of a strategy to reduce the risk of bovine TB.

Winding up the debate, environment minister George Eustice defended culls as part of a broader strategy.

He told MPs: "The Government has been clear we need to pursue a range of options in order to roll back this disease.

"We are clear no one measure on its own will work.

"There is one area where clearly we take a different view to Labour - our view is there is nowhere, anywhere in the world, that has managed to successfully tackle TB without also dealing with the reservoir of the disease in the wildlife population."

Labour MPs forced MPs to file through the lobbies after calling both "aye" and "no" when the motion was called to a vote.

At the start of the debate, Ms Main warned that ministers risked "contributing to an increase in TB in cattle" by pushing ahead with further culls, saying they were never given a "carte blanche to carry on regardless".

And she told MPs: " This House wants a chance to vote on this issue and I have made repeated calls for it to be brought back before the House.

"This is not an easy subject with feelings running high on both sides."

Ms Main insisted that people opposed to the culls were sympathetic to the plight of farmers, but that many members who initially backed the Government's strategy had resolved to withdraw their support when it became clear they had failed to have the desired effect.

"There is great sympathy with farmers who have experienced heartache and hardship over losing cattle and precious stock to bovine TB," she said.

"But there's also regard as to how we, as a society, treat all animals, particularly a protected species.

"And these tensions divide the House.

"And I believe many lent their support to the concept of trying to tackle bovine TB with this strategy, but they did not give the Government permission to carry on regardless: regardless of humaneness, regardless of effectiveness and regardless of costs."

Pilot culls in Gloucestershire and Somerset were due to run for six weeks, with the aim of killing 70% of badgers in each area.

But both schemes were extended after initial figures suggested 58% of badgers were eradicated in Somerset and 30% in Gloucestershire.

Conservative Anne McIntosh, chairman of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, said Bovine TB was costing taxpayers £500 million a year, which could increase to £1 billion in the next decade.

She said badgers were rightly given protection in the 1970s as the population was in decline.

She continued: "But now when we see the extent to which the badger population has grown and the implications for the spread of Bovine TB that is very serious indeed."

After the vote, Mr Eustice said he expected future debates on the issue.

But he told MPs he would not confirm if they would vote on the Government's future approach to badgers.

Raising a point of order, shadow environment minister Huw Irranca-Davies asked if a full debate and a vote in Government time would take place before existing culls continued or new ones began.

He said: "Today, Parliament has expressed a very clear view that mass culling of badgers is not appropriate as part of a (bovine tuberculosis) eradication strategy.

"Today, also, I learnt from a response to my named day written question that (Environment Secretary Owen Paterson) has now received and is now considering the delayed independent expert report, which will likely condemn the culls as ineffective and inhumane.

"Could I therefore ask (Mr Eustice) to confirm that a full debate and a vote in Government time will now take place before any decision to proceed with existing or any new culls takes place?"

Mr Eustice, urged by Labour MPs to go to the Despatch Box, replied to Mr Irranca-Davies: "You've had an issue with the fact that we have indeed received the report, we are considering it.

"It was not our decision when the report was delivered to us, it was an independent expert panel - they decided that.

"It was not our decision nor our reason to get involved on the decision of the Backbench Business Committee to have this debate at this timing today.

"And nor is it the role of the (Labour Party) to dictate when the Government should publish that report.

"Let me be very clear, we've always been clear we will publish that report... we've not made any decisions yet, when we've made a decision - no, I'm not going to confirm there will be a vote.

"I've discussed and debated this many times and I'm sure we will have many opportunities to do again in the future."

Shadow Commons leader Angela Eagle, raising a point of order, said: "This is now the second time that this House has debated this issue on a backbench motion with overwhelming votes to stop the cull.

"What good is having debates in Parliament if the Government is now wilfully staying out of the lobbies, not involving itself in voting for the policy it's actually pursuing in the country, and is taking no notice whatsoever of votes of this House?

"Isn't this making this House an irrelevance?"

Tory Miss McIntosh, raising a point of order, said: "I do regret what record may prove was a vote on very erroneous grounds indeed."